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Bioplastics are alternatives of conventional petroleum-based plastics. Bioplastics are polymers processed from renewable sources and are biodegradable. This study aims at conducting an environmental impact assessment of the bioprocessing of agricultural wastes into bioplastics compared to petro-plastics using an LCA approach. Bioplastics were produced from potato peels in laboratory. In a biochemical reaction under heating, starch was extracted from peels and glycerin, vinegar and water were added with a range of different ratios, which resulted in producing different samples of bio-based plastics. Nevertheless, the environmental impact of the bioplastics production process was evaluated and compared to petro-plastics. A life cycle analysis of bioplastics produced in laboratory and petro-plastics was conducted. The results are presented in the form of global warming potential, and other environmental impacts including acidification potential, eutrophication potential, freshwater ecotoxicity potential, human toxicity potential, and ozone layer depletion of producing bioplastics are compared to petro-plastics. The results show that the greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, through the different experiments to produce bioplastics, range between 0.354 and 0.623 kg CO2 eq. per kg bioplastic compared to 2.37 kg CO2 eq. per kg polypropylene as a petro-plastic. The results also showed that there are no significant potential effects for the bioplastics produced from potato peels on different environmental impacts in comparison with poly-β-hydroxybutyric acid and polypropylene. Thus, the bioplastics produced from agricultural wastes can be manufactured in industrial scale to reduce the dependence on petroleum-based plastics. This in turn will mitigate GHG emissions and reduce the negative environmental impacts on climate change.

Trace elements can have profound adverse effects on the health of people burning coal in homes or living near coal deposits, coal mines, and coal-burning power plants. Trace elements such as arsenic emitted from coal-burning power plants in Europe and Asia have been shown to cause severe health problems. Perhaps the most widespread health problems are caused by domestic coal combustion in developing countries where millions of people suffer from fluorosis and thousands from arsenism. Better knowledge of coal quality characteristics may help to reduce some of these health problems. For example, information on concentrations and distributions of potentially toxic elements in coal may help delineate areas of a coal deposit to be avoided. Information on the modes of occurrence of these elements and the textural relations of the minerals in coal may help to predict the behavior of the potentially toxic trace metals during coal cleaning, combustion, weathering, and leaching.

One of the most popular off‐site wastewater treatment plants used in the tropics is the waste stabilization pond (WSP). Although it has several advantages, its use in urban areas is limited because of its large land area requirement. Hence, this research is aimed at investigating if a solar‐enhanced WSP (SEWSP) can increase treatment efficiency and consequently reduce the land area requirement. The SEWSPs of varying sizes, made of a metallic tank with inlet and outlet valves and a solar reflector, were constructed to increase the incident sunlight intensity. Wastewater samples collected from the inlet and outlet of the SEWSPs were examined for physio‐chemical and biological characteristics for a period of 2 months. The parameters examined were total suspended solids, dissolved oxygen, 5‐day biochemical oxygen demand (BOD 5), chemical oxygen demand (COD), coliform, and Escherichia coli. The efficiencies of the SEWSPs, with respect to these parameters, fluctuated with temperature variation, with the shallowest SEWSP giving the highest treatment efficiency. The research revealed that the cost of treating wastewater using SEWSPs was approximately 2 times lower than the conventional WSP for the same treatment efficiencies.

This paper examines potential changes in solid waste policies for the reduction in GHG for the country of Brazil and one of its major states and cities, Rio de Janeiro, from 2005 to 2030. To examine these policy options, trends in solid waste quantities and associated GHG emissions are derived. Three alternative policy scenarios are evaluated in terms of effectiveness, technology, and economics and conclusions posited regarding optimal strategies for Brazil to implement. These scenarios are been building on the guidelines for national inventories of GHG emissions (IPCC, 2006) and adapted to Brazilian states and municipalities' boundaries. Based on the results, it is possible to say that the potential revenue from products of solid waste management is more than sufficient to transform the current scenario in this country into one of financial and environmental gains, where the negative impacts of climate change have created a huge opportunity to expand infrastructure for waste management.

Indoor air pollution in developing countries is a public health problem deserving of urgent attention. The aim of this study was to assess indoor second‐hand smoke (SHS) exposure via PM2.5 (fine particles with diameter ≤ 2.5 μm) level measurements in several public venues in Kuwait. The PM2.5 mean, median, and interquartile range (IQR) values for nonsmoking areas were; respectively, 28, 24, 32 μg/m3 while the corresponding values for smoking areas were 274, 222, 288 μg/m3 in the absence of water pipe usage and 1434, 1001, 964 μg/m3 in the presence of water pipes, respectively. Differences among the three tested venues (nonsmoking, smoking with and without water pipes) were statistically significant (F = 330.7, P < 0.001). The air quality index (AQI) results showed that nonsmoking areas were mostly classified as either “Good” or “Moderate” whereas the classification in smoking areas varied between “Moderate” to “Hazardous.” Adverse health outcomes from exposure to PM2.5 were also evaluated. The estimated lifetime lung cancer and cardiopulmonary risks in nonsmoking area were 4 × 10−3 and 3 × 10−3, respectively. In smoking areas, the risks were more than sixfold and 30‐fold increases of cancer and cardiopulmonary relative to nonsmoking areas without and with water pipes, respectively. In smoking venues, the relative ratio values were 1.26 and 1.16 with no water pipe and 1.86 and 1.51 when water pipe usage was observed, for lung cancer and cardiopulmonary mortality, respectively. These values reveal that people, especially the young and elderly, occupying or visiting these venues are susceptible to lung cancer and cardiopulmonary mortality. © 2018 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 38:e13096, 2019

Abstract The paper aims to discuss the speedy spread of the use of optical fibres or optical light films lighting systems, as an alternative to classical lighting systems in buildings. A series of architectural projects has been selected to provide more evidence about advantages of these new lighting equipement, in terms of thermal and lighting comfort together with low cost energy. As a matter of fact their efficiency has even lead some professionals to use them in some buildings after suppression of the initial lighting system. The fact that the optional fibres or optical light films are used in various spaces has enabled to hope for a development of their applications in interiors and especially public places, in hot contries where heat output from traditional lighting bulbs is more likely to provide discomfort and hence where requirement for air conditionning is unavoidably maximised.

Abstract Like cities, many large national parks in the United States often include “urban” visitor and residential areas that mostly demand (rather than produce) energy and key urban materials. The U.S. National Park Service has committed to quantifying and reducing scopes 1 and 2 emissions by 35% and scope 3 emissions by 10% by 2020 for all parks. Current inventories however do not provide the specificity or granularity to evaluate solutions that address fundamental inefficiencies in these inventories. By quantifying and comparing the importance of different inventory sectors as well as upstream and downstream emissions in Yosemite National Park (YNP), this carbon footprint provides a case study and potential template for quantifying future emissions reductions, and for evaluating tradeoffs between them. Results indicate that visitor-related emissions comprise the largest fraction of the Yosemite carbon footprint, and that increases in annual visitation (3.43–3.90 million) coincide with and likely drive interannual increases in the magnitude of Yosemite′s extended inventory (126,000–130,000 t CO2e). Given this, it is recommended that “per visitor” efficiency be used as a metric to track progress. In this respect, YNP has annually decreased kilograms of GHG emissions per visitor from 36.58 (2008) to 32.90 (2011). We discuss opportunities for reducing this measure further.

AbstractBACKGROUND: Inappropriate utilisation of biosolids may adversely impact agrosystem productivity. Here, we address the response of wheat (Triticum durum) to different doses (0, 40, 100, 200 and 300 t ha−1) of either municipal solid waste (MSW) compost or sewage sludge in a greenhouse pot experiment. Plant growth, heavy metal uptake, and antioxidant activity were considered.RESULTS: Biomass production of treated plants was significantly enhanced at 40 t ha−1 and 100 t ha−1 of MSW compost (+48% and +78% relative to the control, respectively). At the same doses of sewage sludge, the increase was only 18%. Higher doses of both biosolids restricted significantly the plant growth, in concomitance with the significant accumulation of heavy metals (Ni2+, Pb2+, Cu2+ and Zn2+), especially in leaves. Leaf activities of antioxidant enzymes (ascorbate peroxidase, glutathione reductase, catalase and superoxide dismutase) were unchanged at 40 t ha−1 MSW compost or sewage sludge, but were significantly stimulated at higher doses (200–300 t ha−1), together with higher leaf concentration of reduced glutathione.CONCLUSION: This preliminary study suggests that a MSW supply at moderate doses (100 t ha−1) could be highly beneficial for wheat productivity. Copyright © 2010 Society of Chemical Industry

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) can lead to environmental pollution and threaten human health due to their toxic and carcinogenic nature. The emission of VOCs increases dramatically with the accelerated industrialization and economic growth. Adsorption is identified as one of the most promising recovery technologies owing to its cost-effectiveness, flexible operation, and low energy consumption. In particular, adsorption-based technologies have a high potential to recycle both adsorbents and adsorbates, typically to capture valuable aromatic VOCs from industrial exhaust. Porous materials such as carbon-based materials, zeolite-based materials, and organic polymers and their composites have been extensively developed for VOCs adsorption focusing in adsorption capacity, hydrophobic property, thermal stability and regenerability. Among them, porous carbons as VOCs adsorbents have attracted increasingly attention, because they can be regulated by tuning the pore structure for VOCs accessibility during the adsorption process. Moreover, porous carbons can adsorb target VOCs by controlling the pore structure and surface functional groups. Significantly, the pore size distribution of porous carbons mostly controls the VOCs sorption process. Micropores provide the main adsorption sites, while mesopores enhance the diffusion of VOCs. In this review, the adsorption mechanism of VOCs onto porous carbons was generally concluded. Porous carbons can be designed as a specific structure for adsorption of aromatic VOCs by controlling the pore structure, hydrophobic sites, π-electronic structure, and surface functional groups. Since there are limited review literatures on porous carbons derived from renewable resources for VOCs adsorption, this paper will provide an overview on the synthesis of porous carbons from biomass and other organic wastes for VOCs adsorption or integrated oxidation processes (e.g., photocatalysis, non-thermal plasma catalysis, chemical catalysis) under ambient conditions with the objective of guiding ...